“Well, what was I supposed to do?” I snapped. “You rejected me in front of an entire pack that already saw me as nothing more than a whore’s daughter. They already saw me as the reason their beloved Alpha abandoned them. You stood by and watched them humiliate me!”
My voice cracked, the memories slicing through my chest.
“Tell me, Dimitri,” I whispered now. “What would you have had me do?”
Regret flickered through his hardened expression. “You should have called me,” he said quietly.
“And told you what? That I was carrying your child? Was I supposed to say, please, Dimitri, take me back into your pack?”
“It is your pack, too. You were always part of the pack.”
I laughed bitterly. “No, I wasn’t. You know that. Everyone hated me. And I thought you were different. I thought you saw me. Hell, I thought you even loved me. But you only just wanted to fuck me, didn’t you?”
His eyes widened like I’d just struck him, devastation cutting deep into his features. “Is that what you’ve thought all this time, Isabella?”
My throat tightened. “What else was I supposed to think? It was the best night of my life—and the next day you froze me out like I meant nothing. You ghosted me, Dimitri. I spent three weeks crying myself to sleep, staring at my phone, praying you’d call. Eachnight, silence.”
“I was thinking of you,” he said hoarsely. “Every fucking minute of the day.”
“Then why did you reject me?!” The words tore out of me—broken, loud, raw. Tears burned my eyes, rolling down my cheeks.
He took a step forward, but I backed away. “No, Dimitri. You don’t come here and get to play the victim. You don’t get to demand why I kept my child away from you after what you did to me. How the hell was I supposed to trust you with protecting her when you couldn’t even protect me?”
Dimitri’s eyes shut, and he winced like my words cut straight through him. When he opened them again, they were filled with pain, regret, and sadness, all at once
“Isabella…” his voice came out as a broken whisper. “If I could take back that night, I—”
“Well, you can’t.” Another tear slipped down my cheek. “You made your choice, Dimitri. I’ve had to live with that choice—and I’ve moved on.”
“Well, I can’t move on, Isabella. I haven’t been able to move on. I’ve spent five years wanting—no, needing—your scent around me. Turning the whole damn country inside out looking for you. I was empty without you.”
“But isn’t that what you wanted?” I whispered. “That’s what you chose.”
“And I regret that choice every goddamn day!” He shot back. “I’m here trying to fix this. To make up for lost time. To right everything I did wrong between us.”
“You don’t have to do any of that. I didn’t ask you to do any of that,” I said, shaking my head. “Like I told you—I’ve moved on from the past. You mean nothing to me, Dimitri.”
There was a stillness in the air as I said the last sentence. Dimitri froze, his gaze going dark. “You don’t mean that.”
I swallowed. “I do.”
In two strides, he crossed the distance between us before I could react, standing just inches away from me. He observed the way my body locked up, the way my eyes widened, the way my breath hitched.Then his voice dropped, and with more certainty this time, he said, “You don’t mean that.”
God, how I wanted to prove him wrong. But being this close—his scent filling every inch of me, the heat of his body from being this close—it was too much. And even then, I wanted more. But I couldn’t afford to let myself have more, to make that mistake I’d made in his study five years ago when I’d let my guard down.
So, I put an arm between us, desperate to keep space between us, but Dimitri caught my wrist and pulled me into him. One arm slid around my waist, and my pulse went wild.
With his finger, he tilted my chin up to meet his gaze. And I saw it—the rush of desire in his eyes, the way his eyes burned with the same hunger I remembered. My wolf whined restlessly.
“Tell me you don’t feel anything, Isabella,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to mine.
I couldn’t. My lips parted, but no words came out.
His finger traced my jawline, featherlight. My eyes fluttered shut as I leaned into his touch, soaking in the warmth I hadn’t realized I’d missed for so long.
“You mean everything to me, Isabella,” he whispered, his breath hot against my skin. “You and Adele. And I don’t think I can stay away anymore, no matter how much longer you fight me.”
The reasonable thing would be to pull away.
